


I promised I wouldn't say goodbye

by IaMcHrIsSi



Category: Charmed (TV 1998)
Genre: Chris is also there but only for a bit and he's a cute five year old so he doesn't get tagged, Gen, Prue Halliwell posthumously, not as a ghost but like... Piper remembering her
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:27:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27165887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IaMcHrIsSi/pseuds/IaMcHrIsSi
Summary: Piper finds an old book of Prue's while cleaning the attic.Or: Piper and grief.
Relationships: Piper Halliwell & Prue Halliwell
Kudos: 9





	I promised I wouldn't say goodbye

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't set out to write this. I actually set out to write a Star Wars fic. Which I still plan on writing, btw. But there was an early season 4 Charmed episode on, and I couldn't help but think of how Piper's grief about Prue shouldn't just... stop. The latter seasons never really bring it up, no doubt because of the behind the scenes drama, but Prue was Piper's sister, whom she spend her entire life with. And it would be something that just stays. Even years later when Piper is in a good place with her family and everything. So .... I wanted to write something about that. Therefore, here we go.
> 
> Also, a bit about the whole Chris thing, because that is a mind screw and having your son die before he's even born is huge set of trauma all on it's own. I mean, I love it for that reason, but still. Poor Piper. 
> 
> Title is from Joanne by Lady Gaga.

It happens when Piper decides to clean up the attic. She doesn't really know why she does it. It's not like she's not got enough work without it, with three children under seven and the club to run and her witch work, but one morning she is up there looking up a rather rare demon and when she stumbles over a small pile of books, most of which are over a decade old, she decides that what the attic needs is a good clean.

So, here she is, wearing some of her old demon slaying clothes, already so dirty with the demon blood and human blood and all sorts of slime that won't wash out completely no matter how hard she tries, standing in the middle of the attic, surrounded by half opened boxes. When she pays attention, she can hear the lull of Wyatt and Chris talking to Leo and, interspersed every now and then, Melinda's little babbles. They're doing a puzzle, at least they were when Piper left them.

The book doesn't look particularly special. It looks old, and used, like most of the books up in the attic. Piper almost throws it away without a thought, because it doesn't look particularly witchy, either, just normal, really. There's way too much stuff up here anyway.

But she doesn't recognize the book. The cover is worn, the script barely legible. She's under no illusions that she knows every book in the house, not with the generations of her family that have lived here. She's already thrown out a few unread books, the ones she knows she won't ever read. But this one... something has her open it, look at the first few pages.

And there it is. _Property of Prudence Halliwell_ , written in the careful, clear script twelve year old Prue used whenever she took the extra time to make it very, very pretty.

It's like a punch in the gut.

It's not like she ever really... forgets, about Prue. Prue is with Piper every day, memories of their life together in every corner of the house. There's not a room that her sister hasn't touched. The garden where they used to play, Prue and Piper and Andy, with Phoebe trying to catch up with them. The squeaky step on the stairs they learned to avoid together, so as not to get caught by Grams when sneaking out. Piper still doesn't tread on it, even though Leo's fixed it years ago. The cabinet in the kitchen that used to be Prue's, filled with quick snacks for whenever she couldn't be bothered to cook before rushing of to work.

But over the years, the memories … they haven't dulled, not really. Piper's been afraid of that since Prue died, that one day she wouldn't be able to recall the exact sound of her sister's voice or the exact shade of her eyes anymore, but that hasn't happened. Her memory of her sister is still as clear as the day she died.

And yet, Prue isn't overwhelming anymore. The snack cabinet became the sweets cabinet, and when Piper opens it she doesn't think of Prue anymore, she thinks of how much chocolate her children have had today, and whether she needs to restock. Avoiding the squeaky step is habit, rarely accompanied with conscious thought. The garden is now Wyatt and Chris and Melinda's, to play like Piper and her sisters used to. Prue's room became Paige's, became Chris', and today Piper can spend hours in that room without thinking of her sister.

She hasn't even thought about Andy in months. He wasn't her brother, not really, but for a while there he almost was, and then he died for them, for Prue, but also for Piper and Phoebe, and Piper doesn't even really think of that anymore.

She has to sit down. In a corner, she finds the old camping chairs they'd brought up here years ago, Prue and her, when they'd decided that doing witchcraft while sitting on the floor was too uncomfortable. Phoebe had laughed at them, called them elderly ladies, but then she'd taken a chair too, because she said there was no reason for her to be the only one on the floor. With shaking hands, she unfolds it, noting the squeaking of the old metal absentmindedly.

She doesn't cry. She rarely cries anymore. Not even when she was pregnant with Melinda. With Wyatt she was quite teary, sometimes, with Chris too, but not with Melinda. Sometimes she wonders whether she used up all her tears alreay, with Mom and Grams and Andy and Prue and then Chris, the older one. Maybe there was a finite amount of tears some higher powers had planned for her, and she'd used them all up already.

Then again, she knows enough Elders to know that they had better not be involved in any more of her life than they already are. They've messed up enough already. And if some angel of destiny made any decisions for her, she'll be properly pissed.

Carefully, she turns the pages. They're a bit brittle, probably from the years in a less then perfect environment. Some are close to falling out. Prue must have read it more than once.

 _The Secret Garden_ , the title reads. Piper remembers the book. Grams had read it to them, and when they were older she went to watch the movie with Phoebe. Maggie Smith had been in it, she thinks. They'd asked Prue to come with them, to make it a sisters thing, but Prue had just started working for the museum, and she had thought it more important to work for her future.

 _If only she'd known how little of a future she'd have_ , Piper thinks, somewhat bitterly. But that's unfair, she knows it is. Prue had been 23 when the movie had hit the cinemas, and she'd go on to work in the museum for five more years. She'd been young and ambitious, and she had been right to be. Prue had been brilliant, brilliant and sharp and shining so brightly behind her dark green eyes that it had sometimes felt blinding. Phoebe had certainly felt that way.

She'd had eight more years, then. Eight more years to be young and ambitious and an amazing sister, all at the same time.

She'd been older than Chris ever got to be, the first one. The one she sometimes wonders whether he's with Prue in heaven now, looking down at them, or if he's in her baby boy, memories of a horrific life just waiting to awake, or if he just ceased to exist, disappeared into nothing with his timeline. Or if there is no difference to be made, just one Chris, no matter the experiences or memories he may or may not have. She doesn't know which she wants to be true. She doesn't know if it matters, or if it should.

She looks at him, sometimes, watching him roll his eyes, and she has to sit down, because she's seen this exact expression, but not on the face of a five year old, and it makes her feel faint, with grief or relief or what else, she doesn't know.

Piper turns another page. The paper has gone a bit yellow, but the script is still perfectly readable. She remembers Grams reading this book to her and Prue and Phoebe, sitting in the living room, just days after Mom's death. They'd huddled together, Prue with eyes red from crying, Piper feeling so so _so_ numb, and Phoebe, all of three years old, not understanding what had happened but crying anyway.

She hadn't known that Prue had a copy of the book of her own. One she had gotten long after those tearstained days, if the way she'd written her name in is any indication.

Did she buy it herself? At twelve, she wouldn't have had much money, but a simple paperback would have been well within her budget. Or was it a gift? Who would have given it to her? Grams? Dad? Some old friend that has long since been lost in the fog of childhood? The book is well read. Did she read it on her own, at school or in the evenings, when they'd already gone to bed? Or had Prue simply gotten it second hand, read it maybe once and then put it away?

Did she connect the book to Mom's death? Was that the true reason for not joining Piper and Phoebe in the cinema for the movie? They hadn't asked, back then. Phoebe hadn't rememberd enough to wonder whether there was a connection, and Piper had been to shy.

For a second, she wants to summon Grams and ask her. Wants to try and summon Prue, yet another time. She has enough candles in one of the cabinets she's already reorganized, and she knows the spell by heart. She could do it.

But what would it archive? Prue hasn't ever answered a call, and Grams gets this sad look in her eyes whenever Piper asks things like this. Like Piper shouldn't wonder anymore. Like she should just forget. Like she should just let it go.

Grams means well. Piper knows it. And she knows that knowing where this book came from or when Prue read it won't help. It never does, when she finds yet another puzzle piece of Prue's life. There is no hidden truth to find, no mystery to solve. No matter how many pieces she has, it won't ever fill the hole Prue left.

She knows, because she's tried. In the first months after Prue, when she couldn't get through the day without crying at least once a day, when Paige was still new and asked, constantly, after the sister she'd never met, when Phoebe was slipping away and Piper almost didn't notice, because the grief was still so fresh and Phoebe wore it so differently, in those first few months Piper had hunted down every Prue connection she could find. Every time she found something of Prue's in that time, she'd find out every single thing about it she could, as if she was Prue finding out the provenance of some piece of art. Provenances of Prue's life, instead of historical value. She sighs.

It didn't help. Of course it didn't.

Prue would have laughed at her, she thinks, trying to find meaning in things that never mattered to her. That ugly hair brush that Prue bought because it was cheap, not because it had any special meaning. That shawl Piper had found behind Prue's bed, lost and never searched for simply because Prue had had nicer ones. Maybe Prue had loved this book. Maybe she'd completely forgotten about it.

It's just another thing that Piper will never get to know about her sister.

“Mommy?” Piper looks up.

Chris is standing in front of her, staring at her through his dark hair. He looks a bit worried, in an adorable five years old way. She didn't even hear him coming up.

“Hey pumpkin.” She smiles.

"Daddy wants to know when we'll have lunch." He says. "Wyatt is hungry, and Mellie too."

"I'm coming, honey." She closes the book carefully.

“What's that book?” He asks, looking at it curiously. He likes books, Chris. Already reads better than Wyatt does, though that's mostly down to Wyatt just not being interested in the slightest.She wonders whether the other Chris did, too, and she just never knew because he was so fixated on saving the world, or if that's a new thing.

“The Secret Garden. It belonged to your Auntie Prue, you know.” There are no tears in her eyes as she looks at him, her baby boy taking Prue's book, but it feels like a close thing.

“Did she like it? What is it about? Can we read it?” Chris is buzzing with questions, curious and sweet and here and Piper is so full of love it feels like her heart may burst. She leans forward and hugs her son. He lets her.

“Of course we can read it. My Grams read it to me when I was your age, me and your Auntie Prue and your Auntie Phoebe, and now I can read it to you.” Her voice is clear, not even a bit brittle. She bites her lip.

“Do you like it? We only have to read it if you like it.” Piper smiles, and stands up. Chris' hand finds hers immediately, and she welcomes it.

“Yes, I do." She says. and let's him lead her down to the rest of her family.

**Author's Note:**

> I hate ending fics, my endings are always stupid, but that's nothing new.


End file.
